Car thief makes off with vintage mustang. The seller should face consequences.

[magical thyme]

11. There are laws about contracts and minors are not legally eligible

to enter into them, so modify your ages. Minors cannot individually hold title to a car any more than they can individually hold title to, say, a mutual fund. They can own it, but an adult custodian must be listed and is solely able to act on it. Any car sale would be unable to pass title without an adult custodian signing.

I'd bet a week's pay that if somebody signed over title to a car to a 10 year old, and the 10 year old took that signed over title to the registry, the sale would be deemed "null and void," the kid's money returned and the *seller* would be the one in trouble. They would need to prove they didn't know the kid was a minor. And if the kid got into a major car crash on the way to the registry, how much damage would that entail? A lot.

How do you make loss of childhood, loss of reputation, sexually transmitted disease, pregnancy before ready and able to raise a child, etc. "null and void?" You can't. At best you can only mitigate the damage. The child already will have major consequences. Making the child in question a criminal does not mitigate the damage; it increases it significantly.

In a 16 year old versus 17 or 18 year old situation, statutory rape laws generally are not enforced. That is a far cry from the 40 year old versus 14 or 15 year old that brought out the rape apologists who believe the kid was at fault.